YouTube advertising – performance is the brand essence of our YouTube agency! Here you will find initial information about YouTube Ads, the strategy behind the video ads, the various ad formats, costs and KPIs (key performance indicators) on YouTube, for qualitative traffic in high-quality target groups.
Questions? Talk to us or write to our YouTube Ad experts: Contact
Without ads you only reach 1% – 4% of your followers! YouTube Ads ensure that you can expand your reach faster.
Social ads on YouTube – The big advantage of YouTube as a social media platform is 1) the large number of users and 2) the high level of engagement that users show in the app. Simply put:
You look at a photo on Instagram for 2 or 3 seconds, a video on YouTube for 2 or 3 minutes or even longer! – High involvement
More than 2 billion users – this is what makes YouTube so interesting as an advertising platform and very few companies use YouTube for marketing – an advantage for you as an advertiser. Many have heard of Facebook Ads and are particularly present here.
Video ads in front of competitors – There are such powerful possibilities, exclusively from YouTube so to speak. For example, the targeted placement of videos in front of competitor products (i.e. videos)! This is not possible in any other social app for advertisers. Just one of the advantages of advertising on YouTube.
Organic & paid as a booster
Organic & paid as a booster – YouTube is not only interesting for advertising, if you have your own YouTube channel, you can also provide your created content with additional reach.
Such an “advertised post” increases the reach extremely.
The combination of organic and paid reach is unbeatable. This is because an advertised post not only reaches your community, who already know it “anyway”, but also strangers, new fans for your channel, your products and your brand.
By the way, how much does an ad on YouTube cost? How much does 1,000 impressions cost? Calculate your YouTube Ads media budget here as an example.
Did you know… organic range
Even if your YouTube channel already has 100,000 followers, you usually only reach 6-15%.
Organic reach (average): 6-15% of the community.
* Depending on the activity of the channel
Conversely, this means that 85-94% of the community has not seen the post (too much content competition on YouTube).
Example: Convincing the target group with content
The biggest advantage, however, is the precise targeting of users with advertisements, for example according to their interests or location. The basis for this is the large amount of user data that YouTube (or its parent company Google) has from its users.
Example (sports fashion, soccer shoes and running shoes):
Campaign A: People 21-27 years old, female, from Hamburg with interest(s) in soccer -> Ideal target group for sports brand
This is campaign A. Now we are launching campaign B, with the same parameters, but with the age group 17-20 years. The media (videos, some images in the video ad) then show younger people. Users feel more addressed and the click rate increases.
Campaign B: as above, age 17-20 years.
After Campaign A and B, Campaign C starts.
In the third step:
Campaign C: People who know our people (i.e. probably have similar sporting interests)
This creates brand awareness / reach, exactly in the desired target group. The individual advertisement (campaign) can therefore be precisely tailored by us to your specific target group.
Many parameters are tested:
Periods of the ads
Medium (photo, galleries, 360°, videos)
Content (example: tailored to women aged 21-27)
Text and speech
This will make your YouTube ads more and more efficient. You can then see the results in the monitoring (we’ll come to that in a moment).
It all starts with the first workshop, together with you as the customer and our social media consultant. With your knowledge of your products and our knowledge of marketing, we develop your successful YouTube advertising strategy.
We could now talk a lot about creativity, best practice, references, e.g. our first Amazon documentary with an additional YouTube release, but much more important is the technical component, the strategy!
YouTube Ads: What is that?
How do YouTube Ads work? In this simplified diagram you can see the options you have with ads on YouTube. It is primarily about the overview pages (home page, search results) and the individual video page with its recommendations to the right of the video. This allows you to cleverly place your video content before playing YouTube videos or display it as a recommendation.
YouTube Ads on youtube.com
YouTube Ads in the app
Still not enough of YouTube Ads? Okay! Then we’d like to give you a few more insights into the concepts, methods and tools of a YouTube ad agency.
Content first! Content is king: second 1-5
For users, but also for YouTube’s algorithm. For YouTube videos, the first 5 seconds in particular count. After 5 seconds, users can skip the displayed video. Accordingly, it is important not only to pay attention to a storyline, as with normal video marketing, but also to place the key messages very early on.
Ideally, we place well-considered, small “lures” right at the beginning that attract the user’s attention.
You may already be familiar with the technical term clickbait in online marketing.
Quick attention and the desire for more – that is the aim of this tool.
For example, in the food industry, this could be a simple sentence like:
“There’s no way that will work! (Short pause for breath) I thought to myself. And then … 12 kilograms in 4 weeks. 12 kilograms. unbelievable! Have you heard of this little can? “
First the small bait, the absolutely negative statement and then the big success, the typical hero story – in 5 seconds. Of course, including the core message, right at the beginning.
Testing content on target groups: optimization
Another key tool from a technical perspective is A/B testing. Here, different videos are tested against each other.
If we stay with the example that you have already seen (clickbait), these could be different introductions, spoken by VoiceOver. For example, the factor “kilos” and the period of weight loss could be tested.
When do people click the most?
3 kilograms in 1 week: 3.1%
6 kilograms in 2 weeks: 4.7%
9 kilograms in 3 weeks: 3.8%
12 kilograms in 4 weeks: 4.1%
So we see that 6 kilograms in 2 weeks has the greatest success, with a +0.6% gap. On 10,000 views, directly 600 clicks more.
The same example can of course be applied to the automotive industry.
Car model X with 70 hp
Car model Y with 92 hp
Car model Z with 135 hp
Click figures are of course not everything, more on this in the reporting (conversion rate). The second step is of course more important: When are the most sales made?
Which form of communication ensures the greatest success within the target group? This is how A/B testing works with YouTube ads.
Dark posts: Especially for advertisements
You don’t have to publish hundreds of videos on your channel to do this. That’s why we’d like to quickly introduce a third tool, so-called “dark posts”. Dark posts are unpublished YouTube posts that can only be seen by your advertising manager and the target group that receives your ad.
This is how the technical system behind YouTube Ads works and it is therefore worthwhile using an experienced partner, i.e. a good YouTube agency. If you have any questions, you can find our contacts here.
For example, directly as a (minimum) 5-second teaser, in front of other relevant videos (topic) or directly in front of your competition.
Video recommendation on homepage (website)
Alternatively, as a “recommendation”, next to the user’s current video:
Reporting and analytics: monitoring
Creativity, system, strategy, ultimately the actions must also be measured and their success assessed. This all happens in monitoring. Tip! As a customer, you will regularly receive a brief analysis and a detailed, comprehensive report from us. So you always have an overview of all the figures.
However, it is not many long tables that are decisive, but a few key figures.
KPIs (performance targets) include:
CPM (costs for 1,000 ads)
CPC (cost per click)
Conversion rate (goals achieved)
LAC (cost per customer)
Engagement rate (interaction)
Mentions (marking)
Impressions (page views)
…
KPIs for YouTube advertising
Depending on the social media strategy, general advertising strategy, the goals differ with the corresponding key figures. Social media monitoring looks at various key performance indicators(KPI, performance targets) on YouTube. Here are a few of the most important examples and technical terms.
For most people (with e-commerce but also in stationary retail), one thing counts above all: sales. The technical terms in social media marketing, conversion (achieving certain business goals), or the conversion rate for newsletter subscriptions, registration for a webinar or even your direct sales in the online store.
CPM: Costs for 1,000 ads
CPM – CPM (cost per 1,000 ads), i.e. “Costs Per Mille”, tells you how much it costs if your ad is played or displayed 1,000 times. Speaking of costs, the costs for advertisements are never the same, they differ due to many parameters. Important for the price difference, however, is for example the competition, how many competitors are also advertising on your keywords?
Calculation:
CPM = Costs / Views
0.20 Euro = 2,000 Euro / 10,000 views
CPC: Cost per click
CPC – CPC (Costs Per Click) describes the amount of costs incurred for a click on your “target” (your own YouTube channel, another YouTube video, your online store, landing pages, etc.).
Calculation:
CPC = costs / clicks
2 Euro = 2,000 Euro / 1,000 clicks
The key performance indicator (CPC) is important because reach alone (especially in the sales aspect) is of little significance.
Even more important, however, is the conversion rate and the LAC.
Conversion rate: target measurement
Conversion rate – This percentage deals with the success of YouTube ads. Calculated very simply: If your ad has been played 100,000 times on YouTube and your goal has been achieved 2,000 times (e.g. sold), the conversion rate is 2%.
Calculation:
Conversion rate = leads / views * 100
2% = 2.000 / 100.000
LAC: Lead Acquisition Costs
LAC – LAC (Lead Acquisition Costs), i.e. the cost of closing a sale, shows the final “purchase price per customer”, simply put. The effectiveness of YouTube advertising can then be quickly measured, simply put the profit per customer in relation to the acquisition costs.
Engagement rate: Interaction
Engagement / Interaction – Engagement rate (interaction) is calculated through likes, comments, direct messages, mentions (tagging), impressions (page views) for clicks in the online store.
First conclusion: YouTube for high involvement
You can see how extensive ads on YouTube are, from strategy, to optimization in monitoring – ads on YouTube are very effective as users are highly engaged, unlike other fast consuming apps like Instagram and TikTok.
Advantages of advertising on YouTube
High user loyalty (comparison Instagram, TikTok)
Combination organic, paid for your own YouTube channel (create evergreens)
Advertising in front of competition
Direct linking possible (landing page, e-commerce)
4.9 / 5.0